The Relationship of Sick Leave Benefits, Employment Patterns, and Individual Characteristics to Radiation Therapy-Related Fatigue

Abstract

Management of treatment side effects, including fatigue, may help patients remain in the workforce during radiation.

Functional outcome in patients with advanced head and neck cancer: surgery and reconstruction with free flaps versus primary radiochemotherapy

“…Other studies have identiWed that fatigue under RCT is related to unemployment [41] and that chemotherapy as such correlated with higher disability and quitting work [42]. This might explain why acquiring, keeping and terminating a job (d875) is more problematic and labor and employment services (e590) are more relevant to the RCTgroup.…”

Symptoms and self-care strategies during and six months after radiotherapy for prostate cancer – Scoping the perspectives of patients, professionals and literature

“…Fatigue was described as a common problem in the literature (Saligan et al, 2013;Bryant-Lukosius et al, 2010;Maliski et al, 2008), increasing after one week of radiotherapy and peaking significantly at the end of treatment (Saligan et al, 2013;Knapp et al, 2012;McCaughan et al, 2013;Poirier, 2006). However, one month after external radiotherapy no significant difference between patients with non-metastatic prostate cancer undergoing radiotherapy and healthy men was shown (Saligan et al, 2013).…”

Fatigue in Gynecological Cancer Patients During and After Anticancer Treatment

“…A large body of evidence exists to support the finding that CRF during anti-cancer treatment is not associated with tumour stage (12,22,23,46,51,56,60,(68)(69)(70) or any demographic (12,22,23,34,49,55,56,60,62,64,(66)(67)(68)(69)(70)(71) or treatment-related variables (12,22,23,46,51,53,55,60,64,(68)(69)(70)(71)(72). In contrast, two studies have reported that females experience more fatigue then males (62,73), three have demonstrated an association between increasing age and lower fatigue (12,34,53), one between marital status and fatigue, with divorced women experiencing the most fatigue (74), two between working and raised fatigue …”

“…In a chemotherapy study of breast and ovarian cancer patients, those with a diagnosis of ovarian cancer experienced worse fatigue (4). It is plausible that fatigue severity increases with advancing stage of the disease (10), however CRF has also been shown to be unrelated to disease stage (12). Fatigue is frequently reported as a common side effect of most chemotherapy regimes; nevertheless there have been some conflicting findings in this area (13).…”